I am a Londoner and I travel worldwide considerabl...

I am a Londoner and I travel worldwide considerably. I like to give personal gifts to people who I meet especially to thank them for looking after me in their country. I like the gifts to reflect my nationality and often choose a product not available in the country I am visiting. On a recent visit to Istanbul I collected a couple of pre-online ordered tins of Florentines from Fortnum's and requested two of their signature Eau de Nil shopping bags expressly to use as gift wrap in which to present my gifts. I used turquoise tissue paper to pad out each carrier and when presented they looked visually stunning. They were given in a public space and it was obvious that the Turkish people present were aware who Fortnum's are. I am now in Malta. I flew direct from Istanbul. It crossed my mind that the gift of Florentine's had been so successful in Turkey that it might be appropriate for Malta as well. I planned to order 6 tins to be delivered to my hotel in time for Christmas Day. The Fortnum's online order form makes to provision to specify the inclusion of gift bags even for an additional sum. I emailed Customer Services on 5th December and received their response on 8th December. It was little more than a couple of sentences written in a dismissive could-not-care-less manner saying the carriers were only available to personal shoppers in the Piccadilly shop. There was absolutely no attempt to creatively respond to my request let alone any initiative shown whatsoever by the male customer services rep who seemed to have forgotten that he was the first line representative of Fortnum's. My experience is that if you want to request anything that is in anyway personalised to meet your specific needs then Fortnum's Customer Services Team do not have the ability to meet any expectation at all. Avoid like the plague!